“Thank you.” I squeeze her hand and get back up. I don’t know if we should finish looking downstairs or go straight upstairs. I look at Darry. “Upstairs?”
“Yeah. I’ll finish here and meet you there.”
We walk slowly so as not to step on sprawled limbs. I look back to make sure everyone is accounted for before we head upstairs. Darry makes his way toward us.
There’s a bathroom straight ahead, the master bedroom and three other rooms. “You take that side and we’ll take this side.” I tell Darry and head left. I open the door to the master. Another mess of people. The chemical smell is overpowering. I close the door carefully. The second room is empty. I open the door to the third. Please, God, let there be Jake in here. Please let him be alive. Please let him not be fucking.
His stomach is showing and his legs are bent and his blood crusted arms are spread on the bed. He looks dead and my heart stops beating. Abby gasps.
Israel is curled next to him, naked. Her back is crisscrossed with scars of old beatings and her thighs have slashes in them from cutting, some of them fresh. Her arms and feet are all tracked up and scabbed with infected sores. She’s lying on the side of her body that has the burn scars so those aren’t visible, but I know they cover part of her face and neck and shoulder. I know her inner thighs are burned, too. I know she has pain from prior injuries never fixed and never healed. The parts of her that aren’t ruined are beautiful, the part Jake sees. She’s been hurt worse than him and I think that’s the appeal. He wants to give her happiness. He wants to be the one person in the world that doesn’t look at her with curiosity or ask her if she was in an accident. He wants her to know he doesn’t see her scars when he’s looking at her. That’s why he can’t cut her loose.
Darry is checking to make sure he’s breathing and gives the thumbs up.
Abby is defying all odds and going to look at his face. It looks like there was a struggle. His lip is bruised and his mouth is crusted with blood and a trail of vomit from the heroin.
Israel looks at my sister with a kind smile. “You must be Abby.”
She looks at her, completely freaked out. “Yes.”
“You’re all he ever talks about.” She touches a flaming red tendril of Abby’s hair. She lets go with sad eyes and turns to go back to sleep.
Cece’s scared, seeing her brother like this, vulnerable and weak with his stomach exposed, not guarded at all.
Abby looks at me. “We need to get him out of here. Now.”
I nod and find Isri’s shirt to wipe the puke from his mouth. He wakes and sees Abby kneeling next to him. His eyes fill with desperation. He tells her in Spanish he knows he didn’t make it to heaven, but he can’t be in hell because she wouldn’t be there. He touches her face, devastated.
“He’s saying—”
“I know what he’s saying. I know the language,” she snaps at Cece, looking at him, soft. “Let’s go home.” She pets him tenderly.
“You’re gonna have my baby.” He touches her face and her hair and falls to sleep.
Darry and I pick him up. His head is lolling forward. We put him in the middle of the backseat and Abby gets in next to him to hold him. Cece sits in Darry’s lap. I look at them in the rearview. Jake murmurs a Spanish love song to her. Cece smiles at him, so sad and worried and glad he’s safe. At least for tonight.
Chapter 36
Jake has his head in his hands, crying, sitting next to Mayyim on the edge of our bed. She rubs his back and looks at me with tears in her eyes like seeing him carry on like this is making her want to cry.
I sit next to him, pulling his head to my chest and he clenches my shirt in his hands, weeping, nose running, tears falling, blubbering weeping. He’s weak and his body is shaking. He’s crying like a little kid and he’s going to throw up. “You’re going to make yourself sick, Love.”
He slept with Mayyim and me all night, and he threw up and otherwise slept all day. He got up to talk to Abby and she locked him out of her room.
I understand, though.
I can put myself in her shoes.
She’s never seen anything that crazy in her life and the guy she likes was in the middle of it. Pretty much everything she didn’t know about him came out in one night. And on top of all that, he’s the father of her child and she probably has certain preconceived notions as to how she wanted him to be, and being locked in a room with some naked chick trying to die at a junkie party after he got in a fight because someone didn’t pay him for services rendered was not that notion.
And if this is what he does every time he runs, and he runs a lot, then that’s probably super scary to her. She probably can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.
Seeing him is probably reminding her of all the things she thought she had and has figuratively lost.
He tries to get a hold of himself. He sits here, his body hiccupping with sobs and shudders.
Mayyim gets up and leaves the room and comes back with chocolate milk and three glasses, along with more cheese Danishes.
I smile at her. She’s adorable.
I turn to Jake. “What’s goin’ on, Love?”
He wipes his face on the inside of his t-shirt. He looks into my eyes with his swollen red ones. “She told me when we were in Palm Springs. I freaked out, ya know? So I told her to marry me and she said no, she didn’t want it and I needed to help her get rid of it and I couldn’t do it. I thought she liked me, you know? Like, if she didn’t like me I wouldn’t have started thinking about her because she’s your sister. I feel sick.” He takes the glass of chocolate milk from Mayyim. “Gracias, Corazon. You like those?”
She nods enthusiastically.
“Then I’ll bring them all the time. They’ll make you fat, though.”
She shrugs. “I don’t care.”
He takes a drink and looks back at me. “This whole time I’ve been trying to figure it out but I can’t. I don’t want it but I can’t get rid of it. Then no matter what I’ll do to change my life I’ll still go to hell. The only thing I can do is make it right, but she doesn’t want me. So I went to her dad because I have to do the right thing. So I told him she’s gonna have my baby.” He shakes his head, breaking again. He drinks his milk and takes a breath. “I told him I would marry her and he started talking about getting married and all that, and writing things down and people to call. I get it, you know? My parents are Catholic, my whole family is and they’re all over the whole shotgun wedding thing. And she’s pretty and smart, and I like her. I like the way she thinks. We’re on the same wavelength about religion, and God, and kids. You guys and I have the same overbearing dad and under-bearing mom issues, and lots of kids. That’s why she didn’t want kids and that’s one of the reasons I don’t either. I’ve been dealing with kids my whole life, you know? And how can I look at my kid with happiness and hope when I’ve never had that?” His chin trembles and he wipes tears away.
I steal a Danish from Mayyim and she gives me a dirty look, but her eyes say she’s willing to share, with me.
“She said no, she wasn’t going to ever get married and then I got so fucking mad. He was mad too, and he told me to leave but I didn’t want to. I wanted to shake her.” He drinks some more. Tears run down his cheeks. “Was she just using me? Is it because you told her about me?”
“I don’t know. You should talk to her about it. But not tonight. It’s too late tonight. Everyone’s tired. Come on. Get ready for bed.” And because he looks hesitant and scared of the monsters in the dark I’m adding. “You’re sleeping with us.”
He lets out a relieved sigh. “I’m scared. It’s making me sick. I love the baby so much already and I just want her to like me.” He takes off his pants and shirt.
I hug him again. I don’t feel like I have to be on suicide watch anymore.
We get into bed and Mayyim turns off the light and I see her undress in the dark. She’s beautiful. She climbs into bed and I pull her against my body to hold for a second before I have to
let go and get comfy and listen to Jake cry himself to sleep.
In the morning I lie awake with my eyes closed, listening to Jake and Mayyim talk quietly. She’s telling him about being pregnant and they’re talking about the baby and falling in love with it.
“I am excited,” Jake says. “I just feel sick about it.”
“I think it’s normal.” She sounds so young and soft and reassuring, even to me.
“I keep thinking about my life and how I don’t want my kid to know about any of it. But what if the monster in my dad is genetic? What if there’s a monster in me, too? I don’t want to hurt my kid.”
“I think we all have fears of being like our parents. I think you’d be crazy to think the way you were brought up won’t affect the way you bring up your child. But that doesn’t have to be bad, right? What if knowing what you know, you turn out to be a good dad?”
“I’ve tried hard to deal with all of it. But it hurts a lot. I’ve lost a lot of my memories, good and bad. One of my earliest ones was being duct taped to a chair and my dad making me watch him rape my sister. In every bad dream I have I can hear her screams. It’s not the only memory I have but it’s the one in most of my nightmares. And that’s not the only time he did it, but she stopped screaming as much every time. He did a lot of bad things to me, too. There’s so many things I don’t want to think about. Like how do I change diapers or give my kid a bath? I can’t even take a bath myself because of memories.”
“But I don’t think you’ll ever see your baby like that. I think the things you’re afraid of are just fears. Do you think you should get counseling? I think you’ll miss a lot if you don’t do the things you have trepidation about.”
“Do you think counseling would work?”
“I don’t know. But that’s what it’s there for, right? I had a counselor in high school that let me sit in her office sometimes. She wouldn’t make me talk, we’d talk about other things, but it was nice to know someone knew I was having trouble and thought I would be okay anyway. But I think no matter who it is, you should talk to someone. I think Abby probably needs to talk, too. I’m not saying their dad is as bad as yours or even close, but he definitely had his own extreme style of parenting. What if she’s afraid of the same things you are?”
“I feel like shit. I think I ruined everything. I would be pissed, too, if I was a girl and I did what I’ve done to the girl me. I didn’t plan on this. It’s stupid. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. We’re not on the same level. I’m dog shit and she’s some asshole, rich, white guy’s daughter, and I got her knocked up. I’ve done a lot of bad things. A lot.” His voice breaks. “But I like her and I do want to marry her and it hurts me she hates me and wants nothing to do with me. I guess it makes sense. But it hurts.”
“Just stick around. Stay and clean up. Don’t rush it. If you’re living in the same place you’re bound to start communicating eventually. She does like you. She saw you with puke all over you and held you the whole way home and listened to you sing to her. You have all the time in the world to build a relationship with her. Clean yourself up and stay. That’s probably all she needs right now.”
“It hurts to see her and know she knows everything and she hates me.”
“Life hurts sometimes. Don’t you know that?” she teases him.
“Yeah. But it’s never been my fault.”
“Now’s your chance to show what you’ve got.”
“All she’s ever talked about was going to school and being a writer. She had to stop going to school so she could take care of her mom and now how am I going to get her to school? I don’t have any money. I hustle for money. That’s what I do. I sell the drugs I get in trade. How am I going to get her to school and take care of her?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think it all has to be on your shoulders. She’s pregnant, not broken. And it sounds like she’d like to be a pretty independent woman, don’t you think?”
“Wouldn’t you all like to be independent women with a man who can take care of you?”
Her foot is caressing my calf because she’s thinking about her man. Me. “I think some of us. But I don’t know. I never got the point of complete autonomy. I think it just makes you idealistic about how things are supposed to be.”
“How do you feel about polygamy?”
I smile and rub his bare chest. “The more the merrier.”
He clamps his hand on mine so I can’t get away.
“Oh my,” Mayyim says. “But I think if Abby walked in on this she might get upset.”
“It’s okay. Abby doesn’t want me. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
*****
I get up softly. It’s after sunrise. I pull on my pants and cover Mayyim, tucking her in so she doesn’t miss my warmth and gravitate to Jake’s. I do the same with him. They look like they could be brother and sister, which is funny because he doesn’t look that much like half of his own siblings.
I knock on Abby’s door and walk in. She looks at me to make sure I’m not Jake and goes back to the silent tears and looking out her window from the window seat.
I sit next to her on the little bench. “You need to stop crying. You’re going to run out of tears.”
“I keep waiting and they keep coming.”
“Maybe you should stop holing up in this room and get some fresh air.”
“Maybe.” She takes a breath. “Where are they?”
“Sleeping.”
“You let them sleep together?” She looks at me like nothing would surprise her and she wants to understand, but she doesn’t want her mind blown.
“Yeah.” I shrug. “I can’t help it. I love him. He’s held me through a lot of tough times and I need to do the same for him.”
“What tough time is he going through?” she fishes.
“You.”
“And yet he’s sleeping in your bed with you and your wife.”
“You’re the one who keeps turning him away.”
“He won’t look into my eyes.”
“He’s ashamed.”
“He should man up.”
“You’re a bitch. You sound like dad. And what did your dad do to you when you fucked up?” I look at her. I hope she can see my anger.
She looks at me miserably, tears freely flowing. “You think you know everything? You should mind your own goddamned business and leave me the fuck alone.”
“I don’t, but I do know people. You’re smart and you have a heart. And I know a lot about him, too. I don’t care if you end up together or not but you should stop torturing him and stop being mean. I know if you didn’t want things to work, you wouldn’t care what he did or whether he looked you in the eye or not. And if he didn’t want things to work, he wouldn’t be crying himself to sleep over you. Get over yourself. Your daddy’s not going to take you back. You’re one of us now.” I stand and look around the room. Her stuff is still in boxes. “You have no place else to go. You might as well unpack.” I leave and reclose the door.
What a great fucking speech.
I should be a lawyer.
Chapter 37
I just got home from registering for school. I’m sitting in my car because I can hear yelling and I’m not sure I want to go in. But I have to so I can at least save Mayyim.
I pray for serenity as I walk to the house.
They’re yelling at each other in the sitting area to the right where the dining room and kitchen are. They don’t even look over to acknowledge me.
I walk past them to where Mayyim is sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of cheese Danishes in front of her, watching them. I smile and sit next to her, kissing her lips. “Is this your buyout?”
“I didn’t think I’d need that much of one but now I think it’s fair. They’ve been fighting for hours. But I think I ate too many because now I feel like puking.” She makes a face and looks green.
“You should have told me about this before I married you.” I pick up the greasy pl
astic sleeves.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m hungry and they’re what I imagine manna tasted like. I feel like there’s a little bit of heaven in me now.”
“Wanna get out of here?” I kiss her shoulder.
“I want to see what happens. It’s like watching the birth of a baby elephant. Lots of gore, but intriguing.” She has her hands on her stomach, sitting back to enjoy the show.
I smile at her. She’s adorable. “What are they fighting about?”
“I think it started because she was puking and he told her to eat but she refused. He’s yelling at her that she has to eat to take care of the baby and she’s yelling it’s none of his business because they’re over. Now they’re fighting about who has say over it, she says it’s hers because it’s her body, he says it’s his baby in there so he’s going to tell her what to do about it, I think. They go off on tangents.” She smiles at me. “How was your thing?”
“Good. All registered.” And poor. I open a Danish and pick at it. “I got you a present.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I love presents.”
I hand her the pregnancy test box.
She grins and squeaks. “Yea! I’ve been a nervous wreck obsessing about it. Thank you so much. I’m gonna do it right now. Come with me. Damn, I hate to miss this, though,” she says all in one breath and looks at them, torn.
“Really? Unless one of them punches the othe-r I think we can miss five minutes.”
She grins again. “Okay. Let’s go. Come on.” She gets up and waits impatiently for me.
I follow her into our room and lie on the bed while she goes into the bathroom.
I couldn’t get financial aid because I have the money free and clear. I’ve been trying to get a job but Caleb Jones has me blacklisted. I’m going to have to leave LA or see if Nancy has some pull with people who don’t care about being in Mr. Jones’ bad graces.
She sets it on the dresser and lies next to me.
I set the alarm on my watch.
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